Many imaging devices such as copiers, laser printers, and facsimile machines use toner cartridges. The toner cartridge contains many of the moving parts of the machine and contains a finite supply of toner. The original equipment manufacturers (OEM) intended for the consumer to use the toner cartridge until the initial toner supply is exhausted, and then replace it with a new laser toner cartridge. By placing many of the moving parts in the toner cartridge and making the toner cartridge disposable, the OEM reduced the amount of repair work required on the printers, copiers, or facsimile machines.
The used toner cartridge has many components that may be recycled. An industry known as the remanufacturing industry has arisen to take advantage of this fact. Remanufacturers take used toner cartridges, clean them, repair damaged components, replace worn out components, add new toner, and reintroduce these refurbished cartridges into the marketplace.
In the original manufacturing process, the OEM takes a toner hopper reservoir, seals it, and then ultrasonically welds it to a developer roller housing, creating a combined unit, the toner hopper assembly. The toner hopper assembly is further combined with a waste bin assembly and various other components until the toner cartridge is fully assembled.
In the remanufacturing assembly process, the remanufacturers must first disassemble the cartridge before they can refurbish the cartridge. The disassembly process is in reverse order of the assembly procedure. Access to the various subcomponents can only be accomplished by tearing the cartridge down to its basic parts. By separating the toner hopper reservoir from the developer roller housing, remanufacturers duplicate the condition the cartridge was in when it was new. In the remanufacturing process, after remanufacturers place a seal over the toner hopper discharge opening, they reattach the toner hopper reservoir to the developer roller housing, and continue on with the complete reassembly of the toner cartridge.
As explained in U.S. Pat. No. 6,240,605 to Jerry Stevens, remanufacturers can use a clip system to mechanically compress the developer roller housing against the toner hopper reservoir. The clamping clips are applied at two flanges, a forward and a rear flange, which are created at the juncture where the developer roller housing and the toner hopper reservoir are joined together. By using a clamping clip, instead of glue, a remanufacturer may simply and easily separate the cartridge on its next remanufacturing cycle by simply removing the clips and separating the developer roller housing from the toner hopper reservoir. No sawing is required on the second cycle when a reusable clip system is used.
However, a unique issue has arisen in newer toner cartridges. In these different cartridges, when the toner hopper reservoir and the developer roller housing are mated together, only one combined flange is created. Therefore, only one side of the combined assembly may be clamped using these clamping clips. The other side of the combined assembly lacks the surface area, a lip or protrusion to mount any type of clamping device like the clip. The only option would be to bond the two surfaces together by either gluing or welding the joint. The present invention introduces a way of creating a mounting surface to alleviate this issue and provide a way to secure the area without a flange.